Since last week, police and workers of the neighborhood committee from several counties in Tacheng, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang visited Kazakh and Uyghur households and took away the residents’ laptops and other communication devices. According to local Kazakhs, the government forcibly inspected their computers with the excuse of “eliminating terrorist videos.” The Kazakhs are afraid of being framed by the police.

A Kazakh who just escaped from Tacheng, Xinjiang told the reporter on Sunday (May 13th) that last week, the police from his hometown suddenly inspected the personal computers of local Kazakh and Uyghur residents. He said: “The government demanded to inspect every computer in every minority household, looking for religious videos. If any videos related to Islam are found in a person’s computer, even if they are normal, innocuous videos, the person will be treated as a terrorist. It’s their internal regulation. They check the computers, cellphones, iPads and hard drives in every minority household. The minority residents found strange applications that they had never seen before after the electronic devices were returned.”

There are about ten minority ethnic groups in Tacheng District. Currently, the local Kazakhs were worried that the police would plant terrorist videos and audios in their computers and hard drives in order to frame them, and they did not know how do deal with such scheme. The informer said: “The police will impose a random crime on you in order to arrest you. If they fail to find any excuses, they will plant some videos or pictures in your computer. I believe that their next step is to punish the prisoners of the reformation centers. They (the government) will fabricate evidences and turn innocent citizens into terrorists. We don’t know what to do.”

A Kazakh resident of Xinyuan County said that the ethnic minorities who were detained in the reformation camps in Toli County and Emin County were worried that the government would plant fake evidences in their computers. He said: “The government collected the prisoners’ computers, laptops and hard drives in order to conduct the so-called inspections. Their real intention is to plant terrorist videos and audios in these personal electronic devices. Once the detainees are formally convicted, they will be transferred to prisons.”

According to Kazakhs overseas, the international media began to follow up on the sufferings of the Xinjiang Kazakhs, but the Xinjiang police never attempted to mend their relationships with the Kazakhs and correct the wrongs; instead, the police investigated how the information got leaked. The local governments required the Communist Party Members to store the government documents and conference records carefully and avoid posting work-related texts and images on WeChat.

A 17-year-old Kazakh Ersin Aqjol who lives in Kazakhstan publicized the hardships he has been going through. He and his parents obtained the Kazakhstan nationality six years ago and lived in the Urjar Audan county of east Kazakhstan. His father, Ompaq Ersin, and his mother, Aqan Saltana, had been arrested for over a year. “My parents have Kazakhstan nationality. In 2017, he travelled to China to cancel his household registration, and he had never returned since. I fell from the bicycle when I was little, and the muscles on my leg begin to atrophy. I can’t walk normally now. I live in hospital now, and I will receive operation in the future. The medical treatment costs a lot. My parents had been detained in China for over a year. No one paid the hospital bills, and I can’t support myself. I need help from warm-hearted people and charity organizations. The Chinese police refused to cancel household registrations for my parents. In addition, the police confiscated their passports.”

According to Ersin Aqjol, no one had ever heard from his parents, and he did not know where to turn. He was extremely worried about his parents’ wellbeing. He hoped that the Kazakhstan diplomats could negotiate with the Chinese government, so his parents can get back their passports and return home.

China Aid Association Special Correspondent Qiao Nong
(Note: English version is translated by ChinaAid)